Get Your Portfolio On: Clippings.me Launches Professional Package

Every summer, I promise that I’m going to use the downtime to get my act together and work on my website and portfolio, and then get lazy about doing all of the work. That’s why my ears always perk up when I hear about portfolio sites that do all of the hard work for you.

It’s surprising that there aren’t more portfolio building sites targeted at journalists, ones focused on just showcasing your clips, without making you choose background themes and fonts reminiscent of an early MySpace page. But don’t forget about Clippings.me if you, like me, need to get your clips together and don’t have the advanced skills to create your own gorgeous, professional website.

Clippings.me was a pioneer in the market and has just launched a professional package that makes using the site more intuitive and, quite frankly, makes it something you can be proud to link to or use as a digital resume.

The Pro Package runs you $8 per month. You can upload as many clips — print and web articles, video, even podcasts — to your page, as you can with the free version. The perks include being able to host your own domain and have access to social media stats. You can see exactly where your specific clips were shared and commented on, as well as your clippings.me profile.

User Athena Tacet was a user for four months and jumped on the chance to upgrade for the cheap domain name and simplicity, she told me via an email:

I prefer clippings.me because it’s simple and yet complete. It offers [me] the possibilty to gather and present both multimedia work and print/online articles. It’s also very ‘eye friendly’ since all clippings can be compiled on one page.

The customization options are clean and professional. You can also add ‘Dividers’ on your profile. For freelancers like me, who dabble in a few areas of interest, this means I can keep my television recaps separate from my other blogging gigs and showcase the ones I want to be remembered for. As for multimedia, the profile supports YouTube and Vimeo files as well as Soundcloud and AudioBoo ones.

It’s also nice to have social stats for your pieces attached to the profile. Again, if you’re writing across the web, it’s hard to track what garners attention and what doesn’t. This way, all the details are in one place. It’s handy if you have to prove to an editor that you can write content that makes its way around the social sphere. Here’s a screenshot of the social breakdown of a few of my clips, you can also get more detailed data under the ‘Social Overview’ tab:

Founder Nicholas Holmes is a journalist himself, and understands the plight of portfolio creation on the web. If you’re still on the fence, he’s even penned this handy guide to creating a solid web portfolio — and he won’t be (too) offended if you don’t choose clippings.me. The site also has a journalist directory where you can search for writers on specific beats.

Tacet likes that her profile is her professional home now:

I feel that clippings.me has allowed me to stay relevant and keep myself focused on writing and producing quality pieces as the platform helps me gain viewership and possibly, in the future, some editor will recognize the hard work that was put in most pieces that unfortunately were written for free.

Touche. For now, there’s a seven day free trial of the Pro Package. Sign up, try it out, and if you don’t like it, you won’t be charged a dime. But let me know what you think about it. Do any of you guys use another portfolio site? What do you look for when choosing a way to showcase your work?